Reza Zarrab

Former EU Minister Egemen Bağış has admitted receiving gifts including “chocolate, shirts and ties” from Iranian-Azeri businessman Reza Zarrab and said he helped some of Zarrab’s friends receive visas, speaking at a parliamentary commission on corruption allegations on Nov. 27. He also described “gift giving” as a “Turkish tradition.”

The judge who ruled for a publishing ban on the parliamentary inquiry into corruption allegations concerning four former Cabinet ministers has said he only ruled out the direct printing of testimonies from the commission, not "criticizing and commentating" on the commission's work.

For the first time in Turkey, a court has put a media ban on a parliamentary inquiry into corruption allegations against four former Cabinet members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Parti), scheduled to start on Nov. 26.

Turkey’s media organizations have been unprecedentedly banned from reporting about a parliamentary inquiry into corruption allegations concerning four former ministers of Cabinet.

A request for the ban was filed by the Parliament Speaker’s Office to the Ankara Chief Prosecutor’s Office on Nov. 21, asking for a ban that will last until Dec. 27.

Former Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan has paid 250,000 Turkish Liras as a customs fine for a much-debated luxury watch, which became one of the symbols of Turkey’s massive corruption probe last December.

Çağlayan paid the 250,000-lira fine that was given by the Customs and Trade Ministry over actions that were contrary to the customs legislation.

Watch-seller Yusuf Tutuş, the apparent dealer of the expensive watch that was allegedly given to former Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan by Iranian-Azeri businessman Reza Zarrab, has said Zarrab would buy 20 to 30 watches worth more than 1 million euros annually to give as gifts. 

The suspects in Turkey’s recently dropped corruption probe, including the son of a former minister and Iranian-Azeri businessman, have been summoned to testify as witnesses by the parliamentary commission tasked with investigating the graft claims against four former Cabinet members.

One of the most popular topics of the media right after elections is the answer to the question “Who cast his/her vote where?” As in any other aftermath of any election, we read in yesterday’s papers which celebrity cast their vote at which polling station.

It is now crystal clear the committee formed at Parliament has been constructed to cover up the bribery and the corruption claims.

You could say it was “tension o’clock” when a group of young people asked Zafer Çağlayan - the former economy minister accused of being bribed with a watch worth hundreds of thousands of dollars - what the time was, while eating in an Ankara restaurant.